Utilitarianism

Question 1

Jeremy Bentham 1789

Answer 1

• a time of social and scientific change
• many were fighting for greater human rights and a fairer society (democracy and interests of the majority)
• Bentham set out theory of utilitarianism when writing ‘the principles of morals and legislation’

• allows for moral decisions without presupposition of God
-“create all the happiness you are able to create; remove all the misery you are able to remove. Every day will allow you- will invite you to add something to the pleasure of others- or to diminish something of their pains”

• inspired founders of UCL, believed education should be made more widely available and not only to those who were wealthy and members of the established church, as was the case at the traditional universities of Oxford and Cambridge

Question 2

Hume

Answer 2

“Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do as will as what we shall do”

Question 3

Bentham’s Utilitarianism (general)

Answer 3

• outspoken advocate of law reform, a critic of established political doctrines like natural law and was the first to produce utilitarian justification for democracy
• discussed prison reform, religion, poor relief, international law, and animal welfare.
• advocated universal suffrage and decriminalisation of homosexuality
• he discovered the phrase “greatest good for the greatest number” in Joseph Priestley’s essay on government
• widely respected by 1820s, his ideas influenced reform in public administration, writings still relevant to debates in social policy, legal positivism an welfare economics
• Bentham as attempting to solve the problems of humanity but rejected religion because Christians preached poverty was God given and couldn’t change. Bentham didn’t believe God would determine this

Question 4

Bentham’s social context (NEEDS HW TO BE FINISHED)

Answer 4

• was motivated by the desire to establish universal theory that could be applied to all ethical situations
• his influence on 18 century society and beyond was considerable as he sought a theory of ethics that would iron out inequality

Question 5

Three parts of Utilitarianism

Answer 5

-human motivations (human beings are inclined to avoid bad as it often results in pain and pursue good as this results in pleasure)
-the principle of utility (usefulness)
-the hedonic calculus (how to apply the principles of utility- a system of measuring how good or bad something is)

Question 6

Utilitarianism and Consequentialism

Answer 6

• utilitarianism is teleological and consequentialist as it is concerned with the outcome or consequences of an action
• utilitarianism defines good or bad actions depending on the consequences one course of action will lead to: of all the options available take the one with the greatest aggregate well being produced
• teleological (Greek ‘end’) looks at the consequences, the results of an action, to decide whether it’s right or wrong
• for the teleological thinker, the end justifies the means and rightness would be judged by the end produced

Question 7

Bentham’s theory of motivation

Answer 7

• humans are motivated by pleasure and pain
• he is thus a hedonist, believing pleasure is the ultimate motivation
• this is a moral fact because pleasure and pain identify what is a good or a bad action

Question 8

The Principle of Utility

Answer 8

• after identifying pleasure and pain as qualities for identifying moral goodness, he developed the utility principle’
• rightness or wrongness s judged by its usefulness to produce pleasure
• pleasure produces a feeling of happiness which is used interchangeably in the principle
• the action that produces the most happiness is the most moral
-“an action is right if it produces the greatest good for the greatest number”
(greatest good= greatest pleasure/happiness and the least pain or sadness; greatest number = majority of people)
• maximising happiness for the most people is difficult, as the possible consequences s of different actions must be measured to clearly establish which option does in fact generate the most pleasure and least pain

Question 9

Hedonic Calculus

Answer 9

involves weighing up the pleasure and pain produced by certain actions using 7 criteria:
• intensity: impact on a person
• duration: how long will pleasure/pain last
• certainty: over whether it is pleasurable or painful
• propinquity:how close the experience brings you or how it distances you from others
• fecundity: the chance it has of not being followed by pleasure if the experience is pleasure
• purity: the chance it has of being followed by pleasure if the experience is pain and vice versa
• extent: the number of people affected by it

Question 10

Context/Influences

Answer 10

• despite never practicing, Bentham was trained as a lawyer
• was inspired by Hume, Priestley, Helvétius and Beccaria
• rejected inalienable natural rights (those that are independent on their enforcement by a government)
• in the enlightenment, there was a movement towards working on the common concern using reason. The ‘Public Sphere’ referred to environments in which the general public would take part in discussion, unlike before.

Question 11

John Stuart Mill

Answer 11

1806-1873

• Bentham’s Godson
• believed that quality was more important than quantity when it came to pleasure
• the pleasures of the mind are far superior to the gratification f the body’s desires. Deals with the problem of sadistic torturers, as their pleasure is of a significantly lower kind
• made to study Greek at 3, Aristotle at 13, suffered a nervous breakdown at 20
–this led him to reassess Bentham’s theory on which he was raised, leaving him with no enthusiasm for what he though was good to pursue (learning, philosophy etc)
—believed Bentham’s comfortable life gave him a non-real basis on for assessing what is good for us

Question 12

Mill’s criticism and theory

Answer 12

Mill’s criticism: “He never knew poverty and adversity, passion not satiety: he never had even the experience which sickness gives…He knew no dejection or heaviness of heart”

Mill’s theory: “the well being of human beings is of the greatest importance and their happiness is most effectively achieved when they are free to pursue their own ends”
• “better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied”
—it is better to long for higher quality satisfaction without it than to have lower quality satisfaction

Question 13

Mill’s development

Answer 13

-remained committed to the progress of society through improving society, saw a fundamental error in Bentham’s theory
-Bentham’s notion of pleasure failed to recognise the deeper levels of human experience
-Mill was convinced that feelings other than happiness were necessary for eudaimonia, such as honour, dignity and generosity
-Mill argued that some ideals, such as justice, truth and love, were good whether desired or not
-once physical needs are satisfied, surely someone would prefer a higher to a lower pleasure
-being acquainted with both kinds, surely people would choose quality of happiness over quantity, when both are known, higher pleasure is desired

Question 14

Mill on happiness

Answer 14

“happiness is too complex and indefinite” to be the measure of the moral worth of an action
-happiness is a very unspecific term that can cover a range of satisfaction
-it is not locatable or identifiable, it becomes then a fragile tool to use within this theory
-humans have worked out through trial and error the actins that lead best to human happiness

Question 15

Mill’s moral rules

Answer 15

solves the problem of different preferences by giving general rules
• human beings have worked to through trial and error the actions that lead to happiness
• this is promoted through his secondary principles: do not lie, protect the weak, keep your promises
• rather than claiming that we should always perform the action that leads to the greatest happiness, we should be guided by rules that, if followed by everyone, lead to the greatest overall happiness
• history taught us that certain rules tend to promote happiness
• this is known as Rule Utilitarianism

Question 16

Act/Rule utilitarianism

Answer 16

(Bentham’s)
-looks at consequences of each individual act and calculate utility each time the act is performed
-morality is judged upon its outcome each time it is performed
-applies utilitarian principle directly to evaluate actions
Rule (Mill’s) Utilitarianism:
-looks at the consequences of having everyone follow a particular rule and calculated the overall utility of accepting or rejecting the rule
-applies utilitarian principles to the evaluation of rules

Question 17

Hare on rule Utilitarianism

Answer 17

“if a gunman is chasing after someone I might choose to hide this person inside my shop. If the gunman turns up at my shop and wants to know where I have hidden the person, rule utilitarianism states I should tell the gunman where to find him, for the safety of the rest of my community”

Question 18

Strength’s of Bentham’s Utilitarianism

Answer 18

-Act utilitarianism assesses individual situations, one by one, and therefore produces a truly unique answer that is fitting for the complexity of human life (e.g. sometimes stealing produces more happiness than pain and is therefore justified)

-The hedonic calculus discourages monstrous behaviour, by ensuring that the likelihood of pain is always considered in any decision

-With this system, everyone is a competent judge and everyone’s happiness is worth as much as everyone else’s.

Question 19

Weaknesses of Bentham’s Utilitarianism

Answer 19

-It is time consuming and life cannot be stopped while we run the question of whether we should kill someone to protect ourselves through this complex calculus

-Reduces morality to a mathematical formula, ignoring the other values which should still be strived for such as compassion, equality and love

-The hedonic calculus seems unreliable- it is likely that two people will apply it to the same situation and produce different results.

Question 20

Strengths of Mill’s Utilitarianism

Answer 20

-More consistent than Bentham, due to rule making. Less vulnerable to individual interpretations of events and their consequences (e.g. stealing mostly produces less happiness than pain and therefore a rule ‘do not steal’ is justified and can consistently be applied)

-Argues for quality over quantity of pleasure. Higher pleasures enrich our lives and develop our unique human abilities (“better to be Socrates dissatisfied…than a pig satisfied”).

-Not just about consequences, also about improving as people. You could use Bentham’s hc many times but not develop or grow as a moral agent in any way.

Question 21

Weaknesses of Mill’s Utilitarianism

Answer 21

-The problem of competent judges: Who is a competent judge? Does experiencing higher pleasures for 2 days and lower pleasures for 40 years mean you are still competent to judge one as being better than the other? Seems elitist, when the poorly educated or those living in poverty cannot access ‘higher pleasures’

-No clear guidance on how to decide between two possible actions where both could potentially produce higher pleasure for people

-Higher and lower pleasures hard to define i.e. why should friendship be a higher pleasure than sexual promiscuity if they both produce as much happiness as each other?

-Rule utilitarianism is too rigid - fails to take into account the complexity of individual situations

-hard to agree on pleasure of the mind

Question 22

Preference Utilitarianism

Answer 22

• interested in the best consequences for those involved rather than what creates the most pleasure and least pain
• preference utilitarianism is the satisfaction of an individual person’s interest or desires
• sacrificing an individual for the benefit of a majority becomes problematic
• an action contrary to the preference of any being is…wrong.
• tries to maximise the satisfaction of people’s preferences, requires weighing up all of the interests of the affected parties, recognising their own interest in not worth any more than anyone else’s
• this kind of deliberation is reserved for very special occasions, such as when a person is deciding by what principles to live

Question 23

Singer

Answer 23

born 1946, argues for modified version of utilitarianism, preference utilitarianism or best consequence utilitarianism
• you should maximise the best interests of those affected rather than create the most pleasure and least pain
• “this other version of Utilitarianism judges actions, not by their tendency to maximise pleasure or minimise pain but by the extent to which the accord with the preference of any beings affected by the action or its consequences”

Question 24

Singer on preference Utilitarianism

Answer 24

“Choose the course which brings about the best consequences, on balance, for all affected”
• this will require much consideration
• should only take place in certain circumstances to determine what is the best course of action for all involved
• is for the principles we live by, probably not everyday situations
• ethical decision should involve best interests of those affected
• everybody’s interests must be given equal consideration
• pleasure is hard to calculate but people can express their preferences
• does not require experience to decide consequence, we know our preferences

Question 25

Harsanyi

Answer 25

“preference utilitarianism is the only form of utilitarianism consistent with the important philosophical principle of preference autonomy…in deciding what is good and what is bad for a given individual, the ultimate criterion can only be his own wants and his own preferences” (Morality and the theory of rational behaviour)

Question 26

Strengths of preference Utilitarianism

Answer 26

• it is instinctively correct because common sense dictates that all situations are not identical and sometimes a different approach is needed
• it takes into account cultural diversity- each culture is allowed to operate equally and in parallel without one being considered superior to others
• it seeks to maximise a human goal, its basis is therefore grounded in humanity and does not seek authority from another source
• interest overcomes subjectivity of happiness

Question 27

Weaknesses of preference Utilitarianism

Answer 27

• has the potential to justify any action
• impractical to suggest that we have the time to deliberate and apply the calculus to every situation we come across, especially if we don’t have the full information
• it is quantitative rather than qualitative in nature
• requires you to predict the future

Question 28

Why is preference Utilitarianism a form of Rule Utilitarianism

Answer 28

• follows rules: consider everyone’s interests, no interests are superior to others
• is concerned with ‘higher’ pleasures, interests are more sophisticated than pleasure and pain

Question 29

Positive and Negative Utilitarianism

Answer 29

Positive Utilitarianism: Bentham and Mill’s version of the theory is to maximise general happiness with emphasis on pleasure

Negative Utilitarianism: Aims to reduce pain, instead of trying to maximise pleasure. A world in which no one was particularly happy but in which no one suffered extreme pain would be better than one in which here were extremes of both but in which happiness outweighed pain

Question 30

(General strengths of Utilitarianism) Importance of happiness

Answer 30

-Mill and Bentham agree happiness is intrinsically good
-materialistic culture begs question of what actually makes us happy
-Bentham discourages selfishness and promotes selflessness
-Mill’s ideas about higher pleasures are relevant to society today, with schools promoting arts, sports etc
-happiness is determined by the consequences of actions

Question 31

(General strengths of Utilitarianism) Operates without God

Answer 31

-21st century is largely secular so the principle of utility and hedonism is useful for a majority of people
-it is self contained, meaning following either act or rule still brings one to conclusions about how to act

Question 32

(General strengths of Utilitarianism) Timelessness of hedonism and utility

Answer 32

-seeking pleasure and avoiding pain have always governed our actions and always will
-this is consistent among all people and could be a reason to overlook individual differences (we all should work to the same utilitarian outcome)
-applicable in government, as satisfying the majority is the best a government can hope to do

Question 33

(General strengths of Utilitarianism) for peace, sometimes the minority’s needs must be compromised

Answer 33

-utilitarianism doesn’t always seem fair because the minority could be overlooked
-However, this is fairer long-term. Trying to make everyone happy could leave everyone unhappy as not everybody’s needs could possibly be met.
-It is probably impossible to stop terrorists without compromising the needs of some (civilian and military casualties)

Question 34

(General weaknesses of Utilitarianism) Happiness is no the only intrinsic goods

Answer 34

-the religious are likely to argue that human life, charity, love and freedom are also intrinsically good
-partially addressed by Mill but not at all by Bentham
-utilitarianism reduces morality to pain and pleasure, when morality deals with conflicts of duties and interests which both seem to produce similar levels of pleasure and pain

Question 35

(General weaknesses of Utilitarianism) Hedonism is not enough to make people moral

Answer 35

-happiness of others may not be enough to motivate people as they still do things which decrease the happiness of others
-there also need to be deterrents to inflicting pain in oder to prevent people from doing so

Question 36

(General weaknesses of Utilitarianism) The ends do not always justify the means

Answer 36

-Utilitarianism seems to assume that any action is justified if it brings more pleasure than pain
-arguably, Hitler was trying to bring about the greatest good for the greatest number

Question 37

(General weaknesses of Utilitarianism) People must be treated as ends in themselves if there is to be peace

Answer 37

-Kantian ethics seems appropriate in the modern day as cultures may overlook minorities for the sake of the majority
-terrorists overlook the intrinsic worth of individuals and instead see those lives as means to an end which they perceive as great
-this couldn’t happen if we reject the Utilitarian view that it is permissible to overlook the needs of individuals for a greater good.